On Time
by Kaitsy
Summary: The years have come full circle & we see Mary & Tom together at the Abbey reflecting on tragedy, timing, and second chances as middle-aged versions of themselves. Not a very action heavy piece, but just something that has been on mind for about a year.
1. On Time

**It has been awhile since I've done this. It was not really something I was sure I would ever do again. I am out of practice and shaky on my reborn fanfiction legs, but here, have this. I started writing it last December, all but the last few paragraphs that I wrote tonight, soooo...**

 **It is not that fresh or interesting, but is truly the only ~creativity that has come from me in quite some time. I wanted to post it and relive my glory days lol. It is not proof read or fact-checked or anything helpful like that, and I'm following a sort of made up canon I have for Mary & Tom in the world of this fic. It is maudlin and boring, but I was so invested in this non-pairing back during the last series of Downton, what can I say.**

 **I may post a part-two & clear up timelines & specifics & the like - I wanted it to be a little vague, I guess. **

**& wow, thanks for reading if you are!**

 _ **On Time**_

* * *

"The children have gone up," Mary said, as she entered the small library, and the weariness was faintly detectable in her voice.

He was a comfort to see sitting there by the hearth, washed in the warm glow from the leaping flames. So much a comfort was he that Mary felt the weight of the day fall off her shoulders, and lighten the tension and heaviness both in her head and her heart.

Tom was rosy cheeked and swilling a drink, and she turned away to pour herself one to swill, too. He had the wireless playing quietly in a dark corner, and it was nice to have a melody to help quiet her thoughts.

"You saying 'the children have gone up' sounds like the most familiar thing in the world," He said, and she saw his crinkly smile as she crossed the room.

Mary could even hear the smile in his voice, and she was impressed he could seem so relaxed on what was such a terrible and hectic day. She supposed this was he now – Steady, and calm. He was not always this way, but age had brought it out in him. He was a pillar against it all.

Mary busied herself with the bottle and prepared her own brandy, albeit neat, and inhaled deeply as she considered his words.

"Doesn't it though? To say that sounds like they're our babies again and not fully grown." She said, reflective.

Tom took the chance to steal an uninterrupted glance at this middle-aged version of Mary. Indeed, she was lovely and lithe as always, even though her hair was streaked with coarse grey and her amber eyes cradled by deeper wrinkles. Her cheekbones and tongue were both still sharp, and her mannerisms still so entirely the same, her voice slightly deeper, but the tone still unnervingly polished at times.

Mary was never going to be one to age badly, and Tom might have been noting that in the moment. She looked remarkably the same; no one could mistake her had they not seen her for two years or twenty-two. She was constant in so many ways.

They had that in common, consistency - Though Mary had always been as such, and perhaps he had learned it from her. It was certainly not a trait he had always boasted - He was reckless, impatient, and hot-headed in his youth, but somewhere along the way he had evened out.

Somewhere after Sybil died (and he would stress, certainly, not before), after Sybbie was born, and in the midst of running the estate with Mary, he had become much more a man than a boy. His head had cleared, his shoulders broadened - He was capable, he was strong, he was consistent, and Mary had taught him that.

"It is nice having them back here, even given the circumstances. It feels like we're home again." Tom said, and it roused Mary from her drink-pouring task, so that she turned to face him and leaned against the bar. She had been lost in a moment of memory, and held the snifter in a tight grip.

"Strange, I think, that it still feels that way. It's been so long." She said, observing how he was nestled into the armchair, slumped way down into it, unlike how they might have sat here in their youth. Things were so much less proper, because they were so much more tired, so far away from propriety and entails.

"We've come and gone, though, but to be here again all together..." His voice was quiet, gruff and thick with drink.

They could not see each other clearly in the dim light of the fire, and had no intention of turning on the light bulbs because these sort of discussions and reflections were meant for the dark.

Mary could detect so many things about him even across a dark room.

"I feel calm for the first time all day, though, Tom." She sighed, and he might have been straining to see her, desperate to see her warm eyes dance round the room, but she needed a minute in the shadows.

"I'm glad." He replied simply, and she knew that he was. He truly was glad to know that she was calmed and not so on edge as she had been earlier.

Mary could hear the relief in his voice, and Tom was her greatest supporter left. Her eyes watered for a minute before she blinked it away.

Eventually, she sidled back over to him and the hearth, perching herself onto the settee, drink held between both hands. They were quiet for perhaps five full minutes, but it was one of companionship.

The ice in his drink clinked tellingly as he drained the last of the liquor from it, and she swirled her own around, mesmerising herself with the way the flames danced off the crystal. The music from the wireless faded in and out softly, depending on the song. Mary could have slept right then and there, so at ease was she.

Mary folded into the settee more, curling up like a content cat, and her agility did not betray her age. She rested her chin atop her hand, propping it up on the arm of the settee, and she stifled a yawn. Oh, wasn't this it? Wasn't this all she needed again? Perhaps she would sleep soundly tonight, for the first time in such awhile. Her bones were tired with grief, but she was oddly at ease, too.

"It is almost a relief to be here with you, whatever the situation." Tom tentatively began the conversation again, and for the first time it felt like there were things unsaid, and something shifted between them.

Mary was caught off guard at the hint of palpable tension there was in that moment. It was not like they were apart for long, or didn't see each other frequently – They did, so often in fact that he was the one person in Mary's life she never really missed, so readily available was their time together. But the last few years, she supposed, there had been more distance and also self-preservation.

For, they had both remarried, of course. Henry and Tom were fast friends, and truly spent more time together than Mary did with her second husband. It was charming, it was easy - Mary was glad they had interests in common and eventually their booming business. They two were among the men she cared about most.

Tom left the Abbey to raise Sybbie, plus two more, with his pretty blonde wife on a small property nearby. He still helped run Downton, so Mary truly saw him almost every day, despite the changes that came upon them. In the decades that had gone on there were a handful of years in which Tom and his family returned to Ireland to get reacquainted, and a long few summers when Mary and Henry would leave the country for holiday. Otherwise, he had been a very accessible presence in her life.

"I feel the same," She said, her voice a demure murmur, her cheeks warm. "Oh Tom, it is nearly embarrassing how similarly we feel."

"Have we felt similarly for all these years?" He asked, and his Irish lilt was more pronounced when he spoke quietly and purposefully, and when he drank. She didn't have to look at him to know the way that his mouth moved, or the way his eyes were focused straight ahead as he spoke, not in her direction, his eyebrows slightly high on his forehead, as if what he said surprised even himself.

She knew he looked more serious than he felt, his jaw tight, his forehead wrinkled, lending a look of moodiness to him at certain times.

Mary wondered how it was that Tom Branson ended up being the one she knew like the back of her hand. Everything about him was a stunning comfort.

"I don't know," Mary admitted, turning her gaze to him, the drink dangling from her fingertips, her head still resting on her hand. She felt dramatically sentimental whilst she was with him, and somehow like an entirely different person.

"We couldn't have known, I suppose. That was the point – Not to know." He spoke again, still looking ahead and not even blinking in her direction.

She wondered if he might regret what it seemed he was about to say.

He didn't have to regret it, though – Because he wasn't wrong. If he was going to say what she thought he was, it didn't matter, he didn't have to, because Mary knew it as well as he did.

It was just something they had grown to accept, and never verbally acknowledged, but something that was so obviously there that it needn't be said. Of course it was true, of course it was felt.

When she was with Tom, as she was now, it was hard to imagine she was the same woman. The bond between them was so important that she could scarcely remember details of her former life – Her earlier life. To think she was someone once married to both Matthew Crawley and Henry Talbot, someone who had borne three daughters, who had seen a son off to war, carried a dead Turkish diplomat from her bedroom...it was all so hazy and strange (perhaps the strangest thing was that she was once engaged to Richard Carlisle, long dead himself).

Indeed, she was the same person, but she was so far away from all of those other people now. Tom Branson was the only one with whom she had journeyed the entire way.

She watched his chest push out, as if he was taking a deep breath, and she snapped her head from her hand, holding it straight. She took a deep breath, too, though it was traitorously shaky. She felt somewhere between giddy and depressed, on the verge of some new love. Oh, but this wasn't new.

"Do you ever wish we had simply spent our lives together?" There, he had said it.

Her breath whooshed out of her, she must have been holding it as she waited for him to look at her, and Mary's heart jolted, its fast pace almost painful. She began to think she was too old for this – this kind of talk, this kind of night, this kind of drink. She was well into middle age, but here they were tripping over confessions in a dark room of the Abbey, much like they had both done before, when they were wide-eyed and young.

Finally, it seemed, he looked at her - Though she did not know when she began thinking things like "finally, thank heavens" just to have Tom look at her. She felt tense, her neck tight with nerves, but their eye contact was comfortable - So little between them was anything but, even this.

She might have been twenty again in the moment, excited and wondrous, trying to lower her eyebrows and appear more casual than she felt.

"Tom..." Mary said, and she heard the Irishmen's breath catch this time.


	2. Open Invitation

**Thank you for the lovely positive reviews on the first part of this out of the blue story! It feels so good to be writing Downton again, and so nice to share it with people who appreciate these characters. It is hard for me to find time to write as much as I would like with my work schedule, so when I do, I tend to bang out a few hundred words & then don't return to it for some time. So I am posting another small-ish section, and hope to tie it up with part 3 - This one is kind of boring, but it is holding me back seeing it sitting in my drafts.**

 **Anyway, here it is. Thank you again, I love you all for your kind words.**

* * *

"Tom..." Mary said, and she heard the Irishmen's breath catch this time.

Mary did not continue and they were quiet for a long minute. A long minute in which they did not break their gaze, in which Mary was mining for courage, and in which Tom laid his head back against the cushion, looking positively on the edge of sleep.

This was something he had made peace with long before the present conversation, and he did not want to pressure her or scare her off, but he did want to see it through, so he tried to keep his intensity and eagerness at a certain threshold.

There was a knock, and then the door pushed open, and Mary stood up instantly, glad for the break in tension, glad for a distraction from this long overdue, albeit vulnerable, conversation.

"Barrow," Mary greeted and perhaps never more warmly than now, thankful for his appearance in the doorway.

"Milady," He nodded, acknowledging them, formal and subdued as most of them had been that day (as she and Tom should be now, she silently reprimanded herself).

"Is there anything you need tonight?" Thomas asked, and he was a man hardly aged to her eyes, content in his lasting position at Downton.

"Oh heavens no, Barrow, we're quite comfortable," Mary assured, clasping her hands behind her back in some habit.

"I can see that," He quipped, and perhaps it was Tom who gave it away, as he stayed sitting in the armchair, eyes heavy-lidded from the drink, and the whole atmosphere of the room just warm and sleepy.

"Please, feel free to go up, we're about to do so ourselves as it is," The butler bowed a little.

"My sympathies, once again, on the passing of Lady Rosamund." Thomas said, genuine.

"Thank you, Barrow." Mary said, sincerely, and he left the room.

Mary forgot for a moment the headiness between her and Tom, and remembered the reason they were all back here to begin with.

Indeed, dear Aunt Rosamund. She had outlived her brother, and even Mary's second husband. They were sad to say goodbye, but she had lived a long, full life and endured no suffering.

Though it did seem that loss so often surrounded them, and it was what brought them back to the Abbey this night. They mourned for their lovely, clever aunt, but were glad to be doing so together.

Oh, but there were times this house still barely felt like their own, as if she were still living under her dearly departed Papa's roof, as if she should feel insecure in her position, even though it had been so many years now. Something about Thomas appearing and being able to so quickly sense something between her and Tom made her feel teenaged, and...caught.

That had been the issue all along, the... _unsavoriness_ of it.

Mary winced at her own thoughts, steadying herself. This was a safe haven, at least for now, at least for tonight.

She began the conversation again, feeling her nerves start to rise as she did so.

"I think...we did spend our lives together, in a lot of ways," Mary said tactfully, not wanting to undermine his importance to her. But she was also aware of the fact that she had spent her life with a very different man, with whom she had more children, and she could not devalue that, either.

"Maybe so," He agreed, shrugging, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and it looked like he was bracing himself. "A lot of ways, Mary, but not the ways I mean."

"What, Tom, what more could there have been?" Mary snapped, exasperated suddenly.

Yes, she was glad to be here with him, at ease in his company, but so too was it becoming _awkward,_ and tense to be talking about this on the day they buried her Aunt Rosamund, and, well, to be talking about it _at all_ because of who they were to each other (who they were supposed to be, rather).

Mary was willing to discuss it, to admit that the way she felt about Tom Branson was not always platonic or brotherly. But it was still a difficult topic, considering he was her sister's widower _-_ Should they not have some shame in it all? Mary's thoughts were dramatic, but to her they were just.

It had been almost thirty years since Sybil died, surely not something they would ever forget, but something that was from another part of life – Before they were each other's main champion and support.

"Did you want to get married? Could you _imagine_?" Mary went on, her tone rising as she became emotional, for such a flurry of reasons she could not pinpoint. Her eyes nose stung with emotion, and she balled her hand into a fist, bumping it against the arm of the settee.

She was frustrated. There was so much history, so much they had done in their lives, and it felt like if they admitted these feelings now, it would rewrite their past. Sybil and Matthew – Their first loves, their first choice, their beloved lost chances. There was no question about that, or about them. But could they just accept it, distinguish each other from their first marriages, and be together in the face of it? It was absurd to even think of like that – _Be together._

Mary also did not feel comfortable calling in to question whether she truly loved Henry, her second husband – Dashing and smart, and the man that raised George as if he were his own. But Henry was dead two years now, and it was pointless and painful for Mary to doubt the two decades she spent with him.

But she had spent two decades with Tom, too, hadn't she? She did not want to consider her marriage to Henry an extreme exercise in denial, did not want to make small the large figure he had been in their lives – But that was rather a part of it, wasn't it? Denial. She couldn't be with Tom, couldn't admit the feelings she had for her brother-in-law turned confidante, turned estate co-manager…so she married someone else. She loved someone else.

It had been fine.

"I could, actually," Tom countered, defiant but even-toned in the face of her outburst. "There were times it felt like we were, when my whole day was only you."

He spoke softly and soothingly, to the point that Mary was almost calmed. Perhaps this was how it always could be.

It was such a conflict within them, and just because he was broaching the topic did not mean he was any more certain than she was. Just that, if nothing else, each loss showed him that they should not hide how they truly felt, for their time was finite and one day it would be too late. These thoughts of mortality were spurring on his bravery in the subject matter.

"Mary," He said her name, in a tone that so few had ever used with her.

Tom had detected her emotions just beneath the surface, and feared he was driving her away and had pushed too far. He knew to pull back, but was sorry that they may not get to see this to the end (both the conversation and their relationship).

"It has been a long day, I'm sorry to spring this on you. It just felt natural, tonight, for some reason."

He was right, of course, it had felt natural, which is why Mary halted. It still seemed wrong for it to feel natural.

She watched as he finished the rest of the liquor, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed. Tom was still handsome in middle age, broad shouldered and strong jawed, the grey hairs blending in with his sandy coloured locks. He looked distinguished, not old, and he was so familiar to Mary.

"I'm going to turn in." He stood, and she clutched the rest of her drink as excuse not to follow suit.

She wanted to ask him to stay, but the more stubborn part of herself refused. She remained sitting. She did not say anything.

"Goodnight, Mary."

He left the room, and Mary's shoulders relaxed, sighing – She wasn't relieved he was gone, rather relieved she did not have to maintain her composure, which she had not always mastered around Tom.


	3. Decide On Me

**Me again – Thank you for the kind reviews, again. I love that these characters are still important to me & you, and my interest in them has gone on as the show has ended. I wasn't sure what kind of response the Mary + Tom pairing would get, since I've been out of the fanfic game for awhile, so I'm delighted to know I wasn't the only one picking up all those allusions and details in series six. **

**I did want to clear up that I had posted one version of Chapter 2 with a line re: Tom's second marriage ending in divorce, and I wasn't sure whether to leave it in or take it out. I decided to take it out too late, but the chapter didn't get updated quick enough on the site, so some may have read it with that line in there. I hadn't/haven't decided how much more detail I want to go into, but I regret not deciding before posting it, and I apologise!**

 **Onward, though! This is basically a short chapter in which Mary talks herself out of & then back into, well, Tom - I hope the short posts are OK, I find it easier to write like this instead of one big chunk. I have a bit of a ~scene in mind that I want to work out properly, so I wanted to post this before moving on!**

 **Thank you endlessly and sincerely.**

Mary was weary right to her bones.

Her hands were trembling, and she was surging with nerves as she thought about it all.

What a mess. What a time to create this mess.

It seemed selfish of them, it had the potential to be tawdry, and she did not know what the appeal of it ever was. Surely they could feel things without talking about them like this, without laying all the cards on the table this late in the game. Couldn't they live their lives out without these incessant theatrics? Mary could not even think of it in terms of happiness, or desire, she could not form the words in her own mind – Feelings, these _feelings_ …

The gentle conversation had somehow steered them there, face to face with years of unspoken tension, and it was not ever something she had intended to confront or discuss.

It was difficult to admit to even herself that it had always been there.

At least, in the 'always' that had begun after Sybil and Matthew died, in the 'always' that was intertwined with the second part of their lives, which was oftentimes foggy, morose, and meandering.

But it was unplanned and uncharted, a sudden lurch in her life off the beaten path. As out of control and painful as the years of off and on with Matthew had been, at least it _made sense_. Matthew Crawley was the other half of her soul, this cosmic and charged connection, but Tom Branson was not anyone she could ever have predicted.

She was sure he had never predicted her, either (she was right).

It seemed to happen at some point after the other suitors, but before Henry, that she realised – she wondered, she _sensed_ – there was more to them than the estate and their familial connection.

Though it was innocent and undetectable to anyone but them, it blossomed quietly. Their time together was a salve for her scorched heart, and the hollow, throbbing, gnawing ache in her chest was soothed. Whether it was a slow afternoon in the office, a lively luncheon, or walk across the property – The moments were simple for a relationship that was anything but.

Tom Branson understood her deeply, unnervingly, and quickly. Everything aligned, widow and widower, and suddenly, sadly, desperately, they were each other's only friend left in the world.

Their friendship and the shared understanding of life after spousal death seemed to be their most profound bond - And not their former in-law status. That did not seem so significant afterward, and maybe that was why the feelings could take hold – There was nothing worse than the loss they experienced, so how could it be wrong to find comfort here?

It was just so odd, for one did not normally think of one's friend, nor one's brother-in-law as she had – God, she could not, would not go over this again. She was tired of thinking and tired of warring herself, measuring it all on the moral scale.

Mary was so tired. She had done her best, had remarried and had more children, kept the estate afloat (with Tom's help) through one financial disaster after another, had seen her son through the second world war, had buried family members aplenty – her second husband and father, former mother-in-law and Carson, on and on it went.

It was not as if life had been easy or unburdened, as privileged and well off as they may be. It was not as if she and Tom were still pretty young things with their whole lives ahead of them, with energy and attraction to spare, with love to make and places to hide. They were well into their fifties, their children were grown, Mary would next be a grandmother, it was not _sexy_ or thrilling like it may have been thirty years ago.

Maybe it would be fair, now, this far in, this miserably devoted to each other and Downton, to be able to settle? They had denied themselves, perhaps, truer happiness than they had with their second spouses, denied a more fulfilled life lived together…was that enough for this to be acceptable? Was all their suffrage _enough?_ Maybe prying eyes wouldn't be quite so prying at this stage – They were older and dull, there was hardly any staff, there was hardly any family –

She was softening, she was reasoning – She had not asked for this, she had done her very best to avoid this, so why must she keep punishing herself, and thereby punishing them? She knew Tom understood, he waged a similar battle in his head, but Mary was so bothered by disappointing those around her and her own self that she couldn't – She couldn't just skip off upstairs and accept it, surely. Tom seemed to be able to accept or make sense of it more easily, or at least hate himself less for it all. Just another thing she valued in him.

Mary was getting tired and weak-willed, and she was losing precious control of her thoughts. Her conscience was reeling as she wandered off into her mind, thoughts of Tom back in his old bedroom upstairs, of escaping this dark, damp room for some warmth. She had slept in an empty bed for two years now, and even with Henry in it at times it felt emptier still…Wouldn't it be nice just not to be alone…

She thought of how the same Tom looked, how enlivened and wild his bright eyes could be, how his arms were still strong and she could still watch them flex when he pushed his sleeves up to his elbow, how his hair hadn't thinned, how his voice was still deep, how the accent trilled from his tongue…

How he had calmed and was not so much of a rebel, but how his passion and fire still burned within and he could still argue if the moment called for it…He was the same, but just fine-tuned and _better…_

How damned steady and _good_ he was, and how important he had been all this time, and even though they parted and married others, and _had not spent their lives together in all of the ways,_ it still felt like they had.

When Mary thought of her life, her biggest moments and accomplishments and hardships, she thought of Tom – He had so entirely consumed her and their lives and she was _glad for it,_ but sad about it, too. What would she have done without him? Who would she have been? She could have cried right then, as she realised with a heaviness that he was almost everything to her, but what all had they missed together?

It suddenly seemed very urgent and necessary that she make peace with what was swirling and building within her for these two and half decades, because she needed it, and she needed… _him…_

She came out of her thoughts, and found herself very present in said dark room. The fire was only embers now, and the shadows were long and dark on the walls. There was still liquor in her glass, which she finished in a gulp, then stood on slightly shaky legs. This place could go from homely to isolating within a minute, and she was ready to leave it behind for tonight. Sometimes she was not sure what there was for her here. So much and so many lingered in each room, behind each door, and it crept up on her with the late hour.

Mary was then moving through the hallways in a daze, up the winding stairs, the dark pressing in on her and her vision tunnel. She was trying to calm her racing heart, trying to focus on getting to her own room, because her instincts were leading her elsewhere – Their children were in the home, they were here for a funeral, there were many reasons not to stray –

She didn't stray. She listened to herself, and sighed when she made it to her room, shut the door and leaned against it. This room, this damned room.


	4. From Afar

**This was truly intended to be a simple, sad one-shot about Mary and Tom. It has taken on a life of its own, one that I had not predicted, so I feel I've dug a bit of a hole for myself in some throwaway lines I started out with. I hope you don't judge too harshly any lack of continuity, for I would have researched more if I thought this would be anything longer at the time! It is so easy for me to get inside of Mary's head, so I of course found it harder to do the same for Tom, but I enjoyed the challenge, though I'm not sure how well it paid off. I so enjoy the feedback and the perspectives on the story & on Mary & Tom, so thank you for reading and responding. I love to still be able to have conversations about this show almost a year later. I think they were a natural pairing with great chemistry in series six. Writing this has been cathartic and enjoyable for me these last few weeks, where writing has been so difficult for me in the last couple of years, so I'm just happy to be trying. I don't intend to write an epic of any sorts. Sorry for the abrupt places I decide to end chapters!**

* * *

Tom was dressing for bed in a huff, rather annoyed that Mary had gotten under his skin, though not surprised. She had got her back up, so he eased off, and he would go home to the village tomorrow with nothing _really_ said.

He could do nothing to shut himself up around her. It did not matter that this had not been their norm for some time – drinks in the evening after dinner – because it still produced the same result…Them around the fire together, Tom too comfortable, saying too much.

God, wasn't it just something about these Crawley women.

He could recall with fervor his love for Sybil. She burned through him like nothing he had ever known, and he was positively drunk with it. She was untouchable, their love at some unheard of depths, and he could recall feeling almost _crazed_ , impatient to know whether she would runaway with him or not.

Sometimes he would still marvel, and feel guilty, about how things went between them, the fact he was so adamant she leave her family behind – Because, well, here he was…still right along her family…yet she was long gone from this world.

He ached whenever he thought about her.

Sybil had been a lightening strike in his life, and he would not ever find that again – He did not ever want to.

And he hadn't, certainly not with his second wife. She was a lovely blonde woman with brown eyes, and was a brief breath of fresh air into his world. Emmeline, a creative type, and a calm, observant spirit. She offered an escape from the Abbey, and the ties that bound him there.

But, it was not…enough, as difficult as it was to admit that now. It would never have been enough.

For a few years, the better part of a decade, it had been nice and simple with her. They had two children, and lived nearby in the village, so that he and Sybbie saw the family at the big house nearly everyday. She was a harmless presence, she had opinions but expressed them in different ways, careful enough that she never offended anyone. She knew how to calm Tom, and lead him away from difficult topics, but supported him in all of his ventures.

But it was hard for Sybbie to leave the big house, and the adjustment put a strain on Tom's relationships on either side for a couple of years. It was hard for Sybbie to have three new women demanding of her father's attention – Not that she didn't love her younger sisters, just that she was nearly teenaged by the time they were born, and the shine had gone off on the prospect of siblings by then. Emmeline was a kind step Mum, but Sybbie was bored of the village, and longed for the bustle and intrigue of the Abbey. She also did not really _need_ a motherly figure by then, because she had one in Mary and her grandmother, and she never bonded with Emmeline like Tom imagined they would.

Tom realised, at some point, that he had done it all too late. He had a neat life arranged for them both at the Abbey, and then pulled out, and nothing was going like it should.

Eventually, he felt like he was living someone else's life and his wife, sweet and smart, knew it. She was soon unhappy, and grew to quietly resent him, and could likely read it on his face anytime they were together around Mary.

So unconvincing was he as a husband, that they parted ways. He couldn't fight it – He thought of another woman more than his own wife, and what did that make him.

The worst of it was that he was just relieved he didn't have to wade through that relationship for the rest of his life, disappointing a woman who didn't deserve to be disappointed. They got along well enough to still raise their girls in relative harmony, but he could not remember what it truly felt like to love her once they split. It was a sad follow-up to his marriage to Sybil, which was a whirlwind, wildly passionate time in his life. Not that he thought every love had to be so grand, but he knew he was not chasing the right thing when he married Emmeline, he was not in it for the right reasons. He was a man disgraced.

He was not the kind of Catholic he was raised to be, but he was defeated, and tired by the time they moved on. She had deserved someone who was whole, and who loved her selflessly, not in desperation to escape a complicated situation.

Tom wondered, maybe, if he had someone to talk to (besides Mary herself), that he could have made it through. It was the secrecy of it all, the silent propriety of upper class that was unnerving to him – Who was he going to tell? Edith? Barrow? He couldn't confide in his own family these feelings, either, for it sounded incestuous and wrong if he ever tried to say it aloud.

To be in the house again felt both eerie and familiar. He had not been gone that long – He had stuck around longer into Mary and Henry's marriage than was perhaps...favourable. Tom had remarried fifteen years ago, at a time when things with Mary were reaching a point of no return.

Not that Tom hadn't enjoyed staying in the big house with Henry around, and he had done so for seven years. They were close friends, got along well, and after they opened their automobile business they could discuss operations at all hours in the house (Mary loved that, didn't she ever), and he could carry on estate management, too. It was an easy camaraderie with Henry, and their business was an eventual success.

Though, as Mary had noted to herself and aloud, the two men spent more time together than she spent with Henry at times. She spent more time with Tom, even. It wasn't a bad thing, it wasn't something they ever actively strove to fix – It was just a fact of the relationship, and it was perhaps a part of what made Mary and Henry's marriage work. Henry was charming and affable, with few rough edges, and was a fine addition to the family.

But, there were times, when Henry would go away to London or elsewhere for meetings or to watch races or to be apart of a race team, that his absence was not felt too harshly. It was not as if they were glad he was gone, just that nothing changed all that much.

They fell back into their same routines, without Mary having to meet Henry for dinner or a party, and she was Tom's entire day instead. He felt smug these times, as if he had won some secret battle against her own husband, and got to be selfish with her attention, like a child.

It reached something of a peak in those fifteen years before, and it was do or die.

In those days he could not be in a room with Mary without being acutely aware of her presence to the point of distraction.

The office was suddenly too small for them both, their shoulders and elbows always brushing, she leaning over him to point something out on a map and her hair would brush his face. He would overheat with the slightest touch from her, going red under his collar. She would get close enough for Tom to smell her perfume, and she had never been that close before. Was she aware? She must have been, perhaps was even adding fuel to the fire, with the way she would sway her hips _just so_ when she walked in front of him…

Perhaps it was juvenile, but it was overwhelming and he did not know how he may respond next. He longed to touch her, to run his hands down her back and settle at the base, guiding her in close to him and –

No, he did not want to hurt Mary or Henry, or their marriage, so he couldn't very well _share_ all these feelings.

He couldn't confront her, and ask her to leave Henry (his friend and business partner, the man Tom encouraged Mary to be with!), because was that what she wanted? Was that what she wanted when she wore lipstick when it was just the two of them in the office, when the strap of her dress would fall down her shoulder and she would catch his eye as she slowly pulled it back up, when she would kiss his cheek in parting but linger just a second too long…

He couldn't ask if that was what she wanted. It couldn't be, and it couldn't be what he wanted, either. So it was just…time to leave, to give it something of an effort to be away from her. Henry loved Mary, George, and their girls, and Tom knew Mary's second marriage would be a fine success if he left.

Indeed, how well that had worked. It had been five years since the dissolution of his second marriage, and two years since Henry died, but Tom had stayed away at a small flat in the village. Sybbie had moved out for University, and then took up writing and editing in the city, his other girls lived with Emmeline - His life was lonely, aside from his work, but it suited him. No one could get hurt from there.

He never wanted to hurt anyone. He remained mostly in control of his emotions as he grew older, wiser, steadier. He wouldn't describe his feelings for Mary as frenzied or feverish. But, they had been long-growing and Mary Crawley was an anchor within him by now. She made roots in him, all the way down to his toes, planting him to the ground and steering him right.

In moments of reflection, she would say he anchored her, too.

They could say volumes to each other with a glance, she could always tell what he was feeling (and damn, he tried with her), and it was something different. It was the strongest, most important thing he could have asked for after losing Sybil. He needed that support, that partner in Mary and he doubted either of them would have made it far without the other.

She was his home-base, she was his relief, a touchstone in his life.

For Tom, the fact Mary had been a necessary part of him surviving at all after losing Sybil - trying to raise a daughter away from his family and homeland and with these people he had doubted for so long - outweighed the guilt.

He could not deny it any longer, could not pretend that it was not apart of him, and their dynamic for all of these years. How could anyone resent that? Wouldn't Sybil, God love and rest her soul, understand? What of Matthew, his friend and brother-in-law, partner in crime those early days of Matthew's marriage to Mary, would he understand, or curse him from where their souls rested?

Tom and Mary weren't the same people after their losses. Perhaps it was sad, but it was true – And it couldn't possibly be betrayal when Sybil took the liveliest part of his former self with her.

Tom desperately wanted to believe it would be accepted, that it was not wrong. The voice in his head was firm, and he was convincing, sensible, even. But, if he thought about voicing it or pleading to her, his stomach would bottom out and he would feel vaguely sick. Would she laugh in his face?

Not quite the wild romance that Mary seemed worried about.

He climbed into bed, tossing his robe across the bench at the bottom with a practiced ease, and it felt like no time had passed at all. This room was more welcoming to him than any place else, and he felt a strong emotion being back in it.

Not only Mary had put roots in him, so had the Abbey, no matter how long he had been away, and Tom was thankful for it that night. How nice it was just to be a corridor away from Sybbie, who was so grown and successful, as smart and generous as Sybil but as rebellious and restless as he. His other daughters were sweet, and brilliant, but less fiery, which was not necessarily a bad thing.

Sleeping in this house again was sure to shake up his subconscious, and Tom wondered if he might dream of Mary tonight, or she him.

Sometimes he still wondered in what world he longed for and dreamed of Lady Mary.

Well, only in a world without Sybil, of course.

Though the lights were bright in the house, it still felt like a step back to, dare he say, simpler times. He only had the fire lit, and it enveloped him back into the whole appeal of the Abbey.

He hoped to drift off slowly and pleasantly, the hypnotic shadows of the flames across the ceiling putting him to sleep, but instead he found the bed rather cold and hard, the light coming in the windows stark and blue. He lay there, tense, stiff, and on edge. The effects of the drink were wearing off, and he had a dull headache.

Then came a knock at the door.

Tom frowned, ignoring it, not sure he had heard it at all. Could you will someone to come to your door and knock? If so, maybe it was real.

Another knock, the slightest sound.

He stared in the direction of the door, his heart thudding loudly in his ears. It had startled him.

The doorknob did not turn, and the knock was softer than, say, if it were Sybbie.

He clenched his jaw, throwing back the covers, and went to the door.

Tom touched the door knob, wondering whether the visitor had retreated, and he was about to get back in bed when the knock came again.

Persistent, at an unpredictable hour. Yes, who else could it be?

He opened the door, taking a deep breath as he did so, and there, of course, was she.

Mary stared up at him for a moment - He was not that much taller than her, but tall enough that it counted – and she took a step back. He was intense, and his forehead creased into a deep frown as she moved away.

Truthfully, she just wanted to enjoy the view for this minute, he with his hair untidy and wrinkled grey pajamas, no robe. He did not look as if he had been asleep, more like he had been interrupted. Mary let her imagination dance for a minute, wondering all of the things one might do in a bedroom with Tom that did not involve sleep.

Her cheeks burned, looking up at him with heavy eyelids.

He watched her as she tilted her head, and she looked warmly curious as she stepped back again until she was leaning against the wall opposite the door.

Mary was trying to decide to keep her distance, say goodnight again, and go back to her room. She was begging herself to do it, though it was a quieter part of her than earlier. Perhaps the drink had caught up with her. She felt warm all over, her lips tingled, and the tension was not in her limbs so much as when she sat alone downstairs.

How had she ended up here?

She had not decided what she was going to say to him.

She also did not know that to him, in this moment, she looked impossibly alluring. Leaning as she was, with her weight against the wall, her hips tilted and her chest arched up, it looked… _playful_ , and come-hither.

His eyes raked over her openly, from head to toe, and she burned hot beneath his gaze, for she could feel it like a touch.

So much for this not being sexy.


	5. Next to You

**I listen to a lot of Mumford & Sons when I write Downton fic. I listen to Ghosts that We Knew and can't get that line out of my head - _The ghosts that we knew/Will flicker from view/And we'll live a long life_ \- Thank you for feedback, you're all wonderfully supportive and kind and I am excited to write this for awhile longer just because of the great response to it. You all make this old dog feel like she has a few tricks left just yet haha. I always find Downton readers & reviewers are especially kind and special in their feedback, and I love it. It is a rather sad story, and a sad situation I've put them in, but I kinda like to deconstruct what Fellowes builds up lol.**

* * *

Mary was trying to find her steadiness, the steadiness she was so certain that she had leant to Tom, for she was lacking in the moment. She breathed deeply, and her chest rose and fell obviously, and Tom was trying very hard not to notice.

Everything they had been through in the last twenty-five years was to _avoid_ ending up like this, in a dark hallway outside of a bedroom, all alone. They had orchestrated their lives so that it never came down to this – So that it was never Mary and Tom alone in the big, old, empty house together, toeing the line.

They really had tried.

But they could not have predicted that Mary would be widowed a second time, her husband once again dead too young, but not so young that it was shocking. Yet, not so old that she was beyond desire. They could not have known that Tom's second marriage would have been dead in the water, Tom grasping at air for something more, something to get him through – No, they could not have known that it would all lead back here, just as alone as they were the first time.

They both would guiltily wonder why they had ever tried with others, why they had not just thrown caution to the wind and embraced all they could have had – Circumstances and details and familial ties aside, it could have been…such a full life, such a bright life…

Instead, they had more children they loved, with people they really didn't love as they should have, and it painted everything in a rather bleak light. What an odd, fraudulent life they had lived. As Mary had worried earlier, if they were to succumb to these feelings now, would it rewrite history? She did not want her daughters with Henry to think they were born out of anything less than love.

This had been so inevitable, and they fought valiantly, but they were going to lose anyway, and it was shameful and embarrassing. How could they put this into words? They struggled to make sense of this to themselves, let alone anyone else.

Mary wanted to be as close to him as _possible_ , but so too could she hardly look at him when she was flushed like this, when he was looking at her like that.

If she were a selfless person she would turn away now.

"I need you to unbutton me." Mary said, and she didn't mean for her voice to be so husky, as she was truly asking a favour. She pushed off of the wall, and approached him slowly.

The restrictive black dress had prompted her to leave her room, for it was still buttoned all the way up her back. Before deciding to come to him, she pulled her shoes and stockings off, bare-legged and irritated. She could not even attempt to undo all of the buttons, and it was not some tease or torment, she just wanted out of the dress and into her nightgown.

Well, she told herself that's all it was, at least. She told herself it was the task for which she sought him out, not anything more. She was rather unconvincing.

"Come again?" He asked after a brief silence, and Mary almost rolled her eyes at the expression on his face.

This changed the mood. He was going to be delicate and proper now, of all times.

"I've been in this damned dress – the – entire – night – and I need you to unbutton me." Her tone changed to ever so slightly condescending. She had no patience, she just wanted him to cooperate.

Tom would likely say it was one of her most famous traits – Wanting what she wanted only when she wanted it.

"Who buttoned you into it!" He exclaimed in a hushed tone, wondering how much she had drank after he left.

"One of the girls." Mary sighed, appearing far more casual than she felt.

"You have a lady's maid." He reminded, and he seemed so scandalised by her request that she nearly laughed.

"Hardly anymore," Mary scoffed, this house was hardly the fully operational place as in its heyday.

Anna Bates had long since moved on, bless her wholly.

"And not tonight."

"You're mad." He folded his arms, as if to say he was most certainly not touching her.

"If I'm mad, then so are you. An hour ago you were about to declare all sorts of things, but now you won't help me out of a dress?"

Where had his bravado gone? Mary felt some strange sense of accomplishment, as if she had successfully scared him off. Wasn't that easier? Yes, she had a knack for ruining things, but at least she could know he was as miserable as she if this fell through.

"I'm not seeing the correlation, Mary."

"Maybe that they both bring us too close for comfort." She was tormenting now, but it was not playful, and it was a callousness normally reserved for others.

"Is that how you see it? Being open and honest is too close for you? What is it about you upper class that would rather stifle yourselves until it's too late?"" His face fell some, showing disappointment, though he was rarely surprised by anything she said anymore.

"Too late for what?" Her laugh was a singsong, as the incredulity of it all threatened to overtake her. Too late for a happy little life together?, though she didn't say that aloud.

" _You upper class_ , you say, as if you haven't been right alongside us for twenty-five years."

"It's not my blood, though," Tom shook his head, not one to take Lady Mary's berating. This place may have been in his heart by now, but he still functioned differently than the noble Crawleys.

"If honesty is that important you certainly waited a long time to be honest." Her eyebrows climbed high on her forehead, just inviting a disagreement.

"Because you would've welcomed it then as you are now, I'm sure."

"You're right, Tom, because this could never be normal." They both took a breath, and Tom's face was hot as he tried not to take her words to heart.

"Nothing has been normal! We lost them, George went to _war_ , what has been normal? You're not going to make me doubt myself, it has been long since I've wondered if I'm good enough for the Crawleys." His voice thundered suddenly, and Mary stared him straight in the face as he calmed as quick as he erupted.

Their eyes met across the shadowy hallway.

It occurred to her – for hardly the first time! – how entirely whole and good he was. How entirely soothing and protective he was. How strong and sturdy, kind and loyal he was.

He did not deserve to be knocked down just because she was uncomfortable with these raw, tender emotions.

She cowered some, feeling bad for prodding him. She was not always fair, she knew, and certainly was not fair as she tried to judge his commitment to their...situation.

"Please just unbutton me. I'm exhausted. I did bury my Aunt today, you know, and have to say goodbye to half my family tomorrow." Mary was ending up rather like her Aunt Rosamund, nearly all alone in a big house…but it bothered her so, for soon it would just be her and Barrow haunting these rooms.

"I didn't mean to provoke you tonight; I know it was not an easy day." He unfolded his arms, sighing, and motioned for her to turn. He supposed he shouldn't be too offended, as it was just Mary's defenses. Only half of what she spouted stuck with him, and less than that stung anymore.

The more fiercely she fought the more something meant to her.

"Turn 'round."

She did so, sweeping her hair over one shoulder, and exposing the long row of buttons to him.

"You didn't provoke me, just…caught me off guard." She offered in a soft voice, tired of digging her heels in. It was easy to argue with him, but easier still to be quiet and calm with him.

He had not begun the task yet, had not touched her.

Mary felt her stomach tumble with butterflies as if she was some debutante who had never been touched by a man.

"Is there such a thing?" Tom mused, not standing any closer since he told her to turn around, not in any hurry to do what she asked.

Weren't they always doing what she asked?

"I'm not infallible, sorry to say." Mary drawled pointedly, somehow more comfortable talking to him like this, when he wasn't looking at her face and analysing her.

"That gives me hope we may have this conversation yet, then."

"I wonder."

"I can't see the buttons out here, it's too dark." Tom declared upon inspecting them. His hands could do all of the intricate car repair needed, but they suddenly felt big and clumsy staring at the tiny buttons that blended into the dark material of the dress.

He didn't ask her to come in, fearful what reaction he might get, but he could do nothing to sort them out here in the hallway.

Mary did not object or debate, but nodded and stepped inside the bedroom with him of her own accord, feeling small and safe beside him.

She was not sure which of them closed the door.

For once, for now, Mary did not fight, and let him lead her gently toward the fire, where there was the most light in the room. Turning on the lamps seemed simply too invasive, and it was unspoken that night that all of their interactions would take place by firelight – Something about it made their bold conversations seem less so.

Tom guided her by touching her waist, his hand large and warm against her small frame. It was a simple gesture, but also so stunningly intimate that Mary could not react. She felt the warmth tingle across her skin pleasantly - It was a consuming and welcome feeling this damp August night.

Goosepimples prickled along her skin, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up as he situated her in the light just so to see the buttons.

Her sister stared at them from the mantle, but it was no different than anything else – It felt like all of the rooms had eyes, her father and Matthew, Henry, whomever, all watching from the shadows. There was no escaping it here. Sybil was a lovely presence, her photograph a gentle reminder of the ferociously sweet and accomplished woman she was. Mary could feel no shame under her gaze.

Tom began his task, too focused to worry about their ghostly loved ones just then.

Mary hardly dared to move as he began unfastening the dress, slowly at the nape of her neck, down to her shoulder blades…

She tried very hard to take delicate, casual breaths, and she pressed her lips together as it sounded like she was gasping. Her nostrils flared with her effort, and she was rigid beneath his hands.

Tom was slow and careful, his fingertips dealing only with material, never brushing against the bare skin of her back that was being revealed inch by inch.

He had never touched her like this, had scarcely touched her at all in the years since he married and then parted from Emmeline. Mary was desperate for his warm skin on hers, nearly trembling with the strain of remaining so still, breathing so shallowly, both dreading and praying he would trace his fingers down her spine.

On Tom's part he was trying very hard not to think of who wore this dress he was so deftly unbuttoning. He didn't know exactly what he wanted, either, because he felt – so – strongly – for Mary, something he wanted to voice but struggled to find the words for. And yet, as her pale, soft skin came into view he also desired her and wasn't he far too old for this? Shouldn't he be retired and quietly settled by now – God, it was too much.

There had always been just _so_ much. The moment would overwhelm them both if he didn't reach the last button soon.


	6. Home

**Thank you endlessly for the wonderful reviews. I will say again that I am just thrilled to be sharing this with people who enjoy it. I had lost confidence in my writing, not so long ago, so it is just so encouraging for me to read your kind, supportive reviews, if nothing else! I've been training for a new position at work, and knocked down with a chest infection or two, so it is not exactly where I was _going_ to end the chapter. But I didn't want to leave it hanging for too much longer before an update, since I'm not sure I'll be around next week! So, here you are - This is just a warm, cozy scene, and it might come on a little strong lol.**

 **I listened to "After the Storm" by Shovels & Rope whilst writing a lot of this chapter.**

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"Are you cold?" Tom murmured, not entirely attune to her emotions in the moment, as he was facing her back as she quaked.

"No." Mary replied, so soft her lips barely moved.

Her nerves were frayed, and she felt nearly faint at his proximity. She almost leaned back against him, finally giving in…

Right, so she would just thank him and go back to her room once this was done, say goodbye to him tomorrow as he went back to his flat, as if this was nothing? As if everything that was lingering between them was not monumental? Mary was fit to burst because this was it – Everything was changed for this night. Half a lifetime was spent maintaining what Mary and Tom had between them, and maybe it was not everything they wanted but it was...appropriate, and in tact.

She was not so sure that it would be after this.

More than any of her other concerns, she was afraid to lose him. He had never left for good, and it was one thing she never took for granted. Even when Tom married Emmeline, and put on a good show of keeping Mary at arm's length, trying his damnedest to respect both of their marriages...he was still there if they needed each other.

Wasn't it better to have something, to have this loyal companionship rather than nothing? What if they tried and failed?

They had to convince themselves it was worth the risk. Tom seemed more sure than Mary, perhaps because he had experienced both sides - He had loved Sybil intensely, and lost her tragically, yet his marriage to Emmeline fizzled out dispassionately. He knew how to gauge his feelings, and he felt sure about Mary.

"But you're trembling." He said, and Mary's heart warmed at how boyishly charming it was, something Matthew would have said once upon a time.

 _Yes, who would have thought, Tom_ , she wanted to say, to tease, but she was lethargic and tingling all over, just from the sensation of the material moving across her skin. It was perfectly exemplary of how innocuous they had always been...that Tom couldn't imagine she might be aquiver at his touch.

"Is this all right?" He asked, frowning, pausing, seeming to realize the intensity of the moment.

He felt like a stranger in his own body. Who was this emboldened man thinking he could disrobe Lady Mary? What was his plan for once he had? Tom felt himself a bit stupid just then.

The dress was gaping open mid-way down her back, and Tom had no idea how his hands were not shaking. He could see that she wore only a slip – There was no other garment between her and the dress, for her figure was slim as it was, and it had been a humid August day.

He felt decades younger than his age, propelled back to a time when everything glowed in golden nostalgia. _It had not even been a good time in his life._ To lose Sybil, to be at Downton when his heart was in Ireland...there was no reason to be nostalgic for his early years here. But anything that erased his mistakes, that allowed him to imagine what if about Mary...

To be young, to be free, to make different decisions in his life after Sybil...

"Of course it is, I asked you to do it." Mary straightened her posture, and put her hands on her hips, trying to imagine this was a professional moment instead of a personal one. She tried to imagine it was her lady's maid undoing her dress at the end of the day, and the pose helped her embody it.

This was perfectly fine.

It was hard to feel alluring as Tom stood so near, as a mother of four, closer to sixty than fifty. Mary had learned, though, as she grew older, that she never stopped feeling like herself. Just because she was a Mama, a widow twice over, with some blooms of grey and fine lines, did not change the fact that she was a woman. She was still very much who she had always been, and while she wished she glowed as in her youth, Mary easily looked in the mirror and recognized herself. If anything, all that she had been through just made her more certain of who she was - Doubts and fears be damned.

Just because she was older did not mean the voice inside of her head suddenly changed or sounded different.

She was still sure of herself, and she had to trust herself, too. She had to trust him. They both knew this wasn't ideal, as she would repeat often, but could they really deny themselves this for the rest of their lives?

Didn't they deserve one last chance? Mary did not really like to think of it in those terms - _deserve_ \- but she had to believe it was something. There had to be a reason they were so entangled all these years - There had to be some gratification.

As Tom approached the buttons at the base of her spine, he moved in closer to her. He could not see his handiwork if he looked down, for the space between them was so small. He was blindly dislodging the last buttons, all but pressed against her, but very careful not to be.

"Are we cowards, Mary?" Tom asked, inches from her ear, his breath close enough to stir her hair.

"I think you've called me that once or twice in the past," Mary replied, good-natured, and they both smiled at the faded arguments of yesteryear.

"But to be doing this,-" Tom pressed on.

"We're not doing anything," Mary interjected, not about to indict herself before any leaps had been truly taken (who was she kidding, they were past the point of no return the moment she stepped in the bedroom with him).

"Not yet. But to be thinking about these things, now, after all this time..."

"Why would we be cowards, Tom, just because nearly everyone who would be uncomfortable with this is gone?" Mary said, dripping sarcasm, rolling her eyes out of habit. "Almost everyone who would oppose it...dead? Is it cowardly we've waited until the eleventh hour, oh, I don't know..." Mary sighed - She really didn't know.

"It feels it, it feels like I've taken the fool's way out, and missed half of my life because of it. It was no easier this way, just less...controversial."

"Sometimes I don't know if I was trying to protect everyone else, or just myself," Mary sighed. "I don't know, Tom, I think our intentions were honest, I know that I never expected any...more opportunities."

Mary knew what he meant, she did. It did seem cowardly that here they were now about to reveal these things, tired and ragged, Henry and her Papa dead, Granny Violet and Carson gone...among others - Exactly those who could have had a conniption if anything had developed between her and Tom in those years before...But they were people they loved, not anyone they wanted to lose in order to be together.

They didn't push it off, hoping for this moment. They didn't sit and plot and decide to wait until most everyone they loved were dead and gone to make it easier on themselves. They wanted to avoid it altogether - they did, in fact - and they made mistakes just to put distance between them. It was not like they were in the prime of their lives now, ready to take advantage of all of the time they could have left together - It was not playing out like a fairy tale, no one could look at them and think, _oh this must be how they wanted it_ \- Or so she hoped!

No, Tom was not a coward, Mary did not think, because he had left the only home that his first born daughter had ever known, and married a woman who was eternally kind, and he made a go of it. He _really, really_ did, and he was unhappy, stagnant, and suffered for it. She was a patient, serene woman, but she made no mark upon his heart.

But, it was an effort for him to move on, though it was out of devotion to Mary that he did so, even though his leaving was by way of marrying another woman.

Mary had hated him for leaving, for going to the village to live, but was also thankful he was taking the steps to be apart that she could not. Certainly, she had married Henry, but she never would have asked Tom to leave, and if it had ever been a point of contention with Henry she would have asked her husband to leave first. Just because Tom's marriage ended, and Mary's did not...Well, it did not mean that Mary's _wouldn't have_ ended. Mary was not always so certain that she and Henry had been built to last, and they didn't have to test that theory past sixty.

Tom Branson may have sacrificed more than any of them in the end.

"But here we are." He said, his voice almost melodic, and perhaps they were giving up and giving in.

It didn't matter now if they were cowards, because there was no changing how they had done things. They couldn't rewind to go back and tell everyone how they felt, they couldn't try to come out of this a little less guilty, though a lot more scathed by those departed family members.

But here they were.

Gently, and quietly, the conversation at a natural lull, Tom finished unbuttoning the dress. Mary crossed her arms, holding it up so as to not completely embarrass herself. She did not turn around and Tom did not step away.

Then, Tom touched her, finally, softly and warmly, fingering the hairs at her neck, then resting both his hands atop her shoulders. Mary was not sure if he was going to pull her closer or push her away.

It seemed that, indeed, they had finally arrived, both physically and emotionally.

Tom ran his hands down her arms, testing the waters, worried she could hear how loud he was breathing. He ran his left hand down her back, skimming over the notches of her spine, skipping across her smooth, warm skin.

He gulped, then sighed, reveling in how she glowed by the hearth, how she seemed almost ethereal, as if he was reaching across some divide to touch her as such.

She was divine, she was beautiful in a way that was so especially Lady Mary - She was sharp and dark, but delicate and soft beneath her dress. Her cheekbones and hips were equally angular, but the whisper of freckles over her face and shoulders was youthful.

Mary was always beyond age to Tom, the Mary who was real and warm beneath his touch could have been any age, for she was so unchanged by the rough hands of time.

She was so lovely beneath his own rough hands.

He leaned his forehead against her shoulder, almost sheepish, almost timid, his hand just stroking up and down her back. The fire crackled with life, and Mary sighed, the edge coming off of her a little bit. She was keyed up, she was desperate and nervous, but the warmth from the flames and Tom against her slowly calmed her.

Tom's hand curled around her hip to bring her closer to him, broad and fumbling. His other arm encircled her from behind, just below her rib cage, and Mary released her dress and placed her arms on top of his.

The black garment pooled at her feet, and then she was nothing but silky slip and silky skin against him.

It was not this easy, Mary knew. Mary's conscience and pragmatism were dulled by his presence, and reality was very close just outside of this door, _she knew._

Her Mama was not among those departed, she was still alive and fairly well, down in the dower house, and Mary was thankful for that, but she also could not imagine telling her about this, about him.

It was almost funny if she thought of it, though, as an outsider to the situation, that two of three of Robert and Cora Crawley's daughters ended up here with Tom Branson.

He understood her as much as anyone ever would - Which was far from complete, but still close enough to be significant.

"Mary," The Irish accent was thick on his tongue, the nightcaps of the evening still ebbing and flowing over him, and Mary swallowed hard.

She bent her head forward, against her instinct to lean back against his chest, and then he was kissing her newly exposed neck. Kissing may have been a generous term for it, as he was shaking his head back and forth, side to side, and skimmed his lips across the back of her neck as he did so.

Tom was fighting instincts, too, shaking his head against what was sure to soon spill out of him, even as he could not pull himself away from her.

"Mary," He said again, and his brow was furrowed, his hair falling down to brush against her skin, both of which she could feel - She could feel his frown, feel his torment.

She needed to reassure him, to comfort him as he was always comforting her, though she could not speak just yet. She grasped for him, reaching up and behind her, her fingers finding his forehead, and then stroking through his hair. Mary finally leaned up against him, and her head lolled against his shoulder as he buried his face in her neck.

Mary hated to feel so vulnerable, to expose this side of herself to someone who was unfamiliar with it - With Tom it had always been chaste flirting, easy banter, brief touches, it was never spoken, it was never acted upon, and she was warm with the notion of it, embarrassed and aroused all at once.

Tom wanted to look at her, in the eyes, brush the hair off of her forehead, as he said it. He did, he wanted it to be intimate, and earth-shattering, the most honest thing he had said for years. And it was - the most honest - and it was - intimate - But he could not turn her to face him, could not fathom having to meet her gaze, as he was curled around her in an embrace, and she was soft against him.

There were so many reasons not to be here.

There were so many reasons not to say it.

Of course - She knew - Of course, on some level, they had both known - But it was delicately avoided, preciously ignored.

He felt maudlin, it felt like the moment was too far from anything they had ever shared - He did not know how to touch her just right, he could not stop running his fingers over the silk slip at her waist, could not imagine the expression on her face.

"I'm in love with you, Mary." Said middle-aged Tom Branson to middle-aged Lady Mary Crawley-Talbot, in a tired, sincere tone. "And this is not anything new."

* * *

 _Won't you help me to get through it, I've been flailing like a child -_  
 _My mistakes they are so many, for my weary heart is wild -_


	7. Turn of Fate

**Hello! I wanted to post something before the holidays - I wish you happy ones, by the way! I'm sorry this lost the sexiness and snowballed into what it did. I hope to wrap this up with one more chapter, because the longer I drag stories on the more out of touch I think I get. This is just more heavy, heavy reflection and reasoning. I promise it will settle soon, though. I just get off on a tangent when I go inside of their heads. I wanted to say thank you, always, for the kind words in your reviews - Truly, through some low times recently, reading reviews and insight from fellow Downton fans & you wonderful readers was important to me. I am so inspired by these characters, and so inspired by the other amazing fanfic writers in this community.**

* * *

When Henry died, Tom sat beside Mary at the funeral and held her hand. Tom watched as demure Mary Crawley stood motionless beside his casket at the end of the service, her hand resting atop of it. Tom wept for Mary that day, as he watched her try to keep her mask from slipping. She was strong for her children, whispered to them words of comfort, so Tom was the one to whisper words of comfort to Mary. It was cancer, and after the diagnosis he was gone within two months.

When Matthew died, Tom was not sure by whom he had sat, but he knew it was not Mary. Things were different then.

She was the family's backbone now, for which they were all grateful, because she was everlasting. Her daughters cried on her shoulder, and Mary held them close, for though she did not break down openly, she was not going to criticise them for doing so.

None of the three were completely like Mary. They were softer and more free than their mother. They were born without the burdens that their mother was.

George was not completely like Mary, either. George was not completely like anybody.

George sat on the other side of Tom at Henry's funeral, and he held his own the best he could. He was Matthew Crawley's son, but was raised by an array of good men.

His gentler sensibilities inherited from Matthew Crawley fought against the poise and smoothness learned from Mary and Henry. George's expression was otherwise neutral, even as his lip trembled with grief. George was strong throughout the service, though he stayed close to Tom's side, looking a little lost. Tom was his first father figure, and one he still looked to for guidance.

George had learned from Tom, too, of course.

Henry died weeks before George came home from war. It was his last profound worry, the first thing he and Tom talked about every day, and the last thing he talked about at night. His boy at war - Mary's boy, Tom's boy - The only boy the family had seen in decades.

The only child to bear the Crawley name, and one who looked so like his beloved and deceased father that his very likeness was a shrine.

The sun rather rose and fell on one George Crawley, though most would deny it, even as his sisters and cousins would roll their eyes about it. Their war hero, who had survived against all odds. Dear, eldest, strong George - People looked at him the same way people looked at Sybbie, for they were living, breathing extensions of their dead parents.

Tom had felt strange at Henry's funeral, in a way drastically different than how he felt at, say, Matthew's. He felt despair for the family, for all of those Henry left behind, for Mary so resilient in the face of anything, but he felt...energized, motivated...

It was tragedy, losing Henry - But it was...something else for Tom.

The days and weeks after Henry's death, Tom frequented the Abbey for overnight stays. It seemed important for him to be there. It seemed that it was not just George who was coming home - It felt like Tom was coming home, too. It almost felt like, well, the jig is up - Henry had lived out his life married to Mary, and now he was gone and it was - sad, and a loss - but it also felt like...Tom's affections could settle into their rightful place again.

Certainly, he felt selfish for thinking these things.

He was delirious with the familiarity of the Abbey, with the comfort and ease, even more so than he found in the few years they returned to and lived in Ireland. He knew the workings of this place inside and out, above and below stairs, and he knew the woman at the helm of it just the same.

This really was his home now. Sybil would be glad, his Mother would be stricken.

By the time Henry died, it had been three years since Emmeline left Tom, and he had started to make peace with these, well, feelings for Mary. He even persuaded Sybbie to stay for a couple of weeks more with them all together at the Abbey. It was so instantly and neatly the life they had left behind twelve years before - Except for the absence of family members and staff, and for Mary and Henry's grown daughters in the home, and for those hard years where Sybbie had been so angry that they had moved on, and for the fact of the second world war...

Well, it was not so easy as that. It was not simply going home again. Tom was intruding on their intimate grief. He was pushing in to what was a time for George to ease back into this life away from warfare. Tom assumed no one had filled his role after he left - And, maybe, on some level, they had not.

But Henry's daughters were not raised under Tom's tenure at the Abbey, and he laid no claim over the life that had been built there.

He felt like he had given up his livelihood those dozen years, he felt like he had lost so much, lost the home he had been apart of. He felt like he lost a certain future, for an uncertain path. He had his girls with Emmeline, and he would not change that or trade them for the world, but he was not his whole self for so many years now.

Robert and Henry had passed away in quick succession, and the pall of mourning over the Abbey was almost as thick as it had been all of those years before. Going back afterwards, Tom felt like he was wedging himself back in where he did not quite fit anymore, and was not necessarily invited.

He was stupid, he thought. He was a fool, a sad fool.

Tom went home to village and stayed and had not spent a night at the Abbey in the two years since.

Not until this night, after Rosamund's wake.

What was it about death that brought him back here?

Why did he consider this an opportune moment?

Pull yourself together, Tom, he might have said to himself in a lifetime before, when there was a semblance of his old self left.

Mary might have said the same thing. Mary from that previous lifetime would never have followed him into his bedroom in the wee hours of the morning.

Tom pondered deeply, recalling that near fumble, a time when he overestimated and overstepped.

Would he go home for two years after this night, as well?

* * *

"Do you know how that sounds, Tom?" Mary asked, quietly, before even considering how the words made her feel.

What had he said?

It was hard to consider anything with him wrapped around her so closely. His words changed the atmosphere of the room - Somehow what felt like a brief chance of closeness was weighed down with that of which he spoke - Love.

Mary frowned.

Mary had hoped that the darkness by the flames could lend them some humility, baring their souls and feelings as such, but she still felt her cheeks burn as he spoke so openly. He did not only love her, he was in love with her. She did not quite know what that meant anymore. She was not even sure she was still in love with Henry before he died. Their marriage was pleasant, was a nice companionship, but the burn had gone off of it in the last years, in terms of actively loving one another. It had just faded, as priorities, business, children, and war came to be.

How could she be in love with anyone else now?

Mary knew she was backtracking as she calmed, and she felt bad but also felt like she had to protect herself.

"I don't care how it sounds." Tom murmured, watching as she tried to get a read on him out of the corner of her eye. She could not see him like she wanted, with the way they stood. She was without her armour.

The firelight highlighted her eyelashes as she blinked through the emotion. He could perceive everything about her in this moment. Her eyelashes were fluttering, she stiffened in his arms, snapping her head straight from his shoulder, and she placed both of her hands on his forearm, as if she may be about to pry him off of her.

"You're the only one to hear it. We're alone, Mary." His voice deepened, and Mary could sense a shift - Where she had been exasperated earlier, he was becoming exasperated now. Or was it desperate? She felt he was darker, suddenly, not intending to persuade her, but...defeated if another chance was lost.

"Yes, but we won't always be." Mary said, softly, her fingers tightening on his arm.

It did not feel like the right time for this, now, she was deciding.

But she was right, was she not? This was a stolen moment, it was not their reality.

"So we just never try? I won't lie to myself anymore."

"I'm not asking you to lie to yourself, Tom. I don't think you have done for quite some time. But what's the sense of it now? You've been alone in that flat in the village for five years - Punishing yourself. You could have went anywhere, but you've been sat down there."

Tom did not question what she thought he was punishing himself for. He knew. She knew. They were always on the same level, even if it was unspoken.

Punishing himself for his failed marriage to Emmeline, punishing himself for his feelings for Mary, for his perceived betrayal of Sybil because of those feelings, punishing himself because he took Sybbie away from the family, had tried to break away...

How very much, Mary must know, he made himself suffer.

Because she punished herself for some very similar things.

* * *

Mary tried to wrap her mind around the conflict, the problems with all of this, but so too digest his words - He was in love with her.

She was angry that, hearing him say that, caused her to feel so guilty, and she was angry that she felt this way for him at all (for oh yes, she did feel it), and that she did not have better control of herself. She was angry that he just said it, as if anything could be done about it, as if they were youthful, and in love could mean anything, could have any possibility.

She was battling against her softer emotions. Mary could not piece it together in a way that it would work, and if it was not going to work, then it was just going to be painful. They were going to get hurt, all for naught.

How could she let that happen when they both had been hurt so much already? When they both barely survived their great losses, when they both invested so much into their second chances, only to be disappointing and disappointed. Who were they to assume there was a third chance? Who were they to think they were somehow different than, or above the complications that would come with this?

Mary's eyes widened as her thoughts whirred, as she felt panicked and trapped, and his embrace was none too comforting. It was alien, it was forbidden all these years, and yet...

"Tom," Mary said, her chest rising and falling, as she finally did indeed extract herself from his arms.

"I'm tired." She touched her forehead which throbbed, and she took a step nearer to the fire, away from him, her back still to him.

"Do you want me to go," He asked, and she knew he was sincere.

She knew he had stayed so close for so many years, never entirely leaving, because of what they shared.

From Tom Branson there was a lifetime of devotion, more so than Mary had time to experience with either of her husbands, nor anyone else (save one Charles Carson, who had set the tone for devotion and loyalty in this household long before she was even born, rest his soul).

"This is your room," Mary sighed, and she shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut, feeling her shoulders tighten.

Mary did not quite feel like herself, did not quite understand the trajectory of life that lead her here, that found her in Tom Branson's arms this August night. Her past became so murky when she considered making him her future.

Had she not been a more subtle creature once upon a time? Had she not been able to carry herself through situations like this more easily, with less aching in her chest, or at least less evidence of said aching in her expression?

Mary did not like how the years had softened her, had dulled some of her edges, though most would deny that she had dulled one bit. She did not like that she was so easy to read, that she could not shut herself off to him like she could anyone else (everyone else).

It was just so...taboo. It just seemed so unlike either of them, so out of the blue and drastic. Could they not just let it fade out, as sad as that may be? How could this develop sensibly?

She thought of going down the road to the dower house, and holding her Mama's hand as she looked into her icy eyes, clouded with age, and asked her what she thought of, say, a third love in her daughter's life - What say you, Mama, of Tom Branson and I shacking up?

Her dear, feeling Mama, what would she possibly think?

Mary felt shameful, in a way. She felt like the whole world would be able to see that she, that they, had these feelings for much longer than had ever been acknowledged.

She worried it would be written across her face, though good as she was at suppressing things. She worried that everyone would assume they had carried on like this all along - and they had not - and it made her insides twist in humiliation.

Mary did not want anyone to know this much about her, did not want anyone to think about her that way - She did not want anyone to assume she was a reckless woman (wasn't she, though?), who was in some affair with her brother-in-law. It had not been like that.

She did not want their children to wonder what had gone on behind closed doors.

Would people think that? How could she stop them from thinking it, if they did?

Or, perhaps, would they believe it was innocent, it was gradual, and gentle? Would they care to know that it was never spoken about or acted upon, that they were just a strength and support to the other, and that was it? That they were lucky to care so deeply for each other, after losing their first spouses? That without each other...Mary could not finish the thought.

Would anyone care, or did she care most of all?

"What could we have done differently?" Mary asked, a murmur, a ponder, a plea. Her eyelids fluttered as her pulse quickened.

She could use another drink about now, for she could not stop questioning everything and anything, and the mood was just about ruined. She needed an answer from him, a good answer. She wanted to shake him as her brain pulsed.

"Nothing," Tom answered quickly, brow furrowed, wanting to reassure her.

"Well, everything," He then sighed. "It isn't fair to look at it like that - We could have done everything differently, but it would have been less...honourable."

"Oh Tom, let's not pretend there's anything honourable about this. Waiting until now..." Mary sighed, too, and she had not fully opened her eyes in several moments, immersed inside her own head. Behind her eyelids was red, the glow from the fire seeping through.

"We weren't waiting." Tom said pointedly, as she had mentioned the same thing earlier.

"I suppose not - I suppose we thought..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "I never thought I'd be widowed again with any life left to live."

Mary had not turned around, could feel him looming over her shoulder with expectations.

It seemed they were a world apart now, the minutes he held her were fading fast, the space between them shadowy and dark, an entity in and of itself.

"We couldn't very well have been waiting when we didn't know how the other felt," Tom said, reasoning with her, as if he was talking someone down from the ledge.

He was frustrated talking to the back of her head. He was losing her before he had even found her.

"I still don't know how you feel." Tom finished, and Mary's neck flexed uncomfortably as she tried to ground herself, tried not to let her thoughts tumble from her mouth without consideration.

"You must." She clenched and unclenched her fists habitually, speaking through her teeth.

She turned round then, and bent to collect her wrinkled dress from where it pooled onto the floor, from that moment when it seemed like they were heading somewhere, when impulses were controlling them both.

She clutched the dress to her chest, shielding what little modesty she had left, and turned to face him again. She found his expression was calm and patient, even as her own features were pinched with stress.

"Well, essentially, but...I've said it, haven't I?" Indeed, he had. Mary remembered when he loved her sister, loved her so fiercely, so desperately, defiant in the face of rejection and divisions.

Mary and Tom were practically one in the same now, there was no divide, class or otherwise.

Could she deny the chance to be loved again? Her nose stung with emotion as she replayed the words. Oh, how many precious times had she been told that, by how many men. Love. How few of them had even really known her. How few of them she had loved in return. Certainly the score was not even. She had not loved them all, had loved but a fraction of them.

This man, though, this good, strong man, this supportive, loving man - This passionate, caring man - Of course it was Tom, it was this version of Tom that perhaps she could, perhaps...

"What say you, Tom, maybe in another lifetime?" Mary ventured, sad and careful.

Where had gone her bravery from earlier.

"You must see, Mary - This is the other lifetime," Tom said, his tone still deep, but it was sad, too, though still steady and calm. "In any other time, in any other life, if we could...have them, we certainly would never come to be. We are simply what is left."

How profound, but of course he was right. If there was any other chance after this, she would want Matthew, and he Sybil. If there was anything beyond this long life to see their beloved again, of course - Of course that was what they wanted. This life without them was the alternative, was the only tragic scenario in which there could be Tom and Mary, together.

Mary gathered herself up, taking a deep breath, and took one step closer to him again. Mary looked into his light-coloured eyes, her face casting a shadow across his own. She had never been this close to Tom before tonight, or rather had never stayed this close to him - A peck on the cheek in greeting or parting, perhaps, and then on she would go, but these moments were slow and heavy.

She could see him in a sort of detail that she never had. She could see his wrinkles and faded freckles. She could see the cleft in his chin, the curve of his lips. She could see the sprinkling of grey in his hair, though he somehow still looked boyish and bright to her, to everyone.

She could see the man her sister had married, through the age and the years, and she saw the man who raised Sybbie and his younger girls, who loved George as his own, who loved Downton as his own, now, too.

It was his home, though he had not lived there in some time, and Mary wondered if she should ask him to come back.

Some part of him had been waiting for years for her to ask him to come home.


End file.
